


Square-Turn'd Joints and Strength of Limb

by Elennare



Category: White Boots | Skating Shoes - Noel Streatfeild
Genre: Gen, Ice Skating, ice hockey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 02:41:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8872570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elennare/pseuds/Elennare
Summary: "Don't you all want to know what happens to Harriet and me? Because I do." (Noel Streatfield, White Boots)Harriet and Lalla take different paths on their way to being champions grim.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bookchan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookchan/gifts).



> bookchan, I hope you like it!  
> Thanks as ever to my amazing beta (name redacted until reveals), for once again being the best any author could ask for!

**** A dark-haired girl flew across the ice with the puck, leaving the opposition far behind. She shot, and the goalkeeper leapt - too late! The puck had flown into the net. The whistle blew, and the crowd went wild with applause. No-one was more enthusiastic than the  girl sitting in the first row of seats near the goal, whose normally serious face was transformed by a grin from ear to ear.

Hearing her name in a familiar voice above the congratulations of her teammates, the scorer turned around and caught sight of the cheering girl. She quickly skated to her side.

“Harriet!” Lalla exclaimed, face alight with pleasure. “What are you doing here? I thought you weren't coming back for days yet! What happened to your skating trip on the lakes?” Without waiting for an answer, she reached over the railings to hug her friend.

“The weather broke right after the championship, so we came back early,” Harriet explained, hugging her tightly back. “I was disappointed to miss the skating trip, but I’m glad it did now, so I could see you being a champion grim.”

Lalla giggled. “This is only the first match of the season, silly. I’m not anywhere near a champion yet. That's you, Miss Gold Medallist!”

“Lalla! Lalla Moore! Are you quite deaf?” a new voice demanded, and one of Lalla’s teammates skated up to them. “We’ve been calling you for ages! We’re going out for supper to celebrate, are you coming?” With a friendly grin at Harriet, who she knew quite well from skating practice, Molly added, “You’re welcome too, of course, Harriet. Plenty of family and friends are coming - and we all want to hear about the championship!”

“We’ll be right along,” Lalla promised, and Molly skated off, satisfied. “You will come, won’t you, Harriet? It won’t take us a minute to get out of our kit - or you can come with us instead of waiting outside, if you don't want to have to give Aunt Claudia a rundown of exactly how you and everyone at the championship skated!”

Harriet blushed at Lalla’s accurate assessment. “It’s terribly nice of her to take such an interest - ” Lalla snorted, but Harriet ignored it “ - but I really wanted to just watch your game in peace… I suppose I should go and join everyone really.”

“Nonsense! Come with me and say hello to the girls instead, we’ll protect you from her. I promise I won’t ask you to take my skates off,” she added with a wink.

“Are you sure a person who scored the winning goal doesn’t feel too grand to take her own skates off?” Harriet teased, and they both laughed. “No, I’ll go and talk to your Aunt Claudia while we wait for you, then I can go to supper with you and the girls with a clear conscience.”

“All right! I’ll hurry them up so you’re not trapped for too long,” Lalla said.

Harriet nodded and turned to leave, but Lalla’s call of “Harriet!” made her look around - and burst out laughing. Lalla’s imitations were as good as ever, and the one she was doing now, of a drooping and reluctant Harriet, was absurdly funny. She had even managed to capture how Harriet hunched up her shoulders in a way that made her look even thinner than usual, despite her bulky hockey uniform.

“Go!” Harriet insisted, not wanting Mrs King to come looking for either of them and catch Lalla, who was now imitating her aunt at her most imperious. “I thought you were going to hurry the others, not slow them down!”

Lalla skated off to the changing rooms, and Harriet headed firmly up the stairs, remembering the first ice hockey match she had ever seen in this rink, and the changes it had brought.

******

Funnily enough - given how things would turn out - Lalla had been furious when it had first been announced that the women’s ice hockey team from a neighbouring rink would be moving to theirs.

“They’ll spoil the ice, and they’ll hog the main rink all the time, just you wait and see,” she had predicted darkly. “We’ll be expected to make do with the tiny little private rink, and never have any time on the big one at all. It’s not fair!”

Though she was less vehement about it than Lalla - and she quite liked the seclusion of the private rink, especially when practising new figures - Harriet hadn’t been terribly thrilled about the announcement either. After skating here six days a week for years, she’d come to share Lalla’s almost proprietary feeling about it. Still, the deal had been made (for a sum of money that had made Toby sound quite awed when he heard about it), so there was nothing to be done. Besides, Harriet was much too busy working for tests to worry about it for long.

Lalla was a different matter. She was busy too, working for her next gala - and that was part of the reason for her grumpiness. Lately, galas just weren’t as exciting as they used to be. She was tired of having to smile politely as people who had no idea about skating talked as if they were world champions; she was fed up of clothes fittings, of everlasting diets to fit her clothes… she was growing quite rapidly, too, and felt awkward and uncomfortable with the changes in her body. So she was ready to be cross at anything, and the impending arrival of the women’s ice hockey team was an excellent excuse.

The managers had arranged the team would play an exhibition match on the rink against a local rival before starting to train there permanently,to impress the other regulars with what they could do. At first, Lalla had tossed her head and said scornfully that she wouldn't go and couldn't possibly be expected to have any interest in it - cutting her nose off to spite her face, for deep down she was wildly curious. Max Lindblom, however, had insisted all his pupils were to go, and between him and Harriet, Lalla had allowed herself to be persuaded.

The day of the match finally arrived. It was one of Miss Goldthorpe’s days to take the girls to the rink, and on the way there, they pestered her for anything she could tell them about hockey - Lalla, of course, had never been to school, and hockey hadn't been played at Harriet’s old one, so neither of the girls had ever experienced even a field hockey match, much less an ice hockey game. Miss Goldthorpe had played in her own schooldays, but she had been considered a frightful ‘dud’ and had been happy to forget all about it the moment she could. Still, she racked her brains and told them what little she could remember of the rules - cautioning them that ice hockey might be quite different.

The two teams, looking intimidating in their skates and protective gear, skated onto the rink, and the captains shook hands. Lalla, who was in one of her most aggravating moods and ready to sneer at anything, whispered scornfully to Harriet, “I wonder how they can skate at all under all that! Do you suppose it's to protect them when they fall over?”

Harriet just hissed at her to shush, hoping that Lalla wouldn't keep it up for the whole match. It was true the players’ sturdy clothing was very different from the light airy dresses she and Lalla wore for galas and tournaments, but looking at the hockey sticks they all carried, she thought she’d be glad of such protection if she were playing.

Then the whistle blew - and they were off! The girls watched in amazement, thrilled by the speed of play, the way the puck flew up and down the rink, almost too fast to see - but not too fast for the players who intercepted it and sent it flying over to their teammates, or for the goalie who leapt and caught it. It seemed that almost before they finished clapping for the save,  the game was in motion again. Now one of their team’s players was speeding towards the opposing goal; the audience called for her to shoot, but two of the opposition players were bearing down on her. One of her teammates  was coming up on the other side of the rink, and the girl with the puck passed it to her - she caught it skillfully - she sped up - she shot - she scored! Everyone clapped and cheered; including, Harriet noticed with some relief, Lalla, who called out as loudly as anyone there.

All too soon, the referee called half-time, and Miss Goldthorpe turned to her charges with a smile.

“Well, girls, are you enjoying it?”

“It’s glorious!” Lalla exclaimed, eyes shining. “I never thought it would be like this. It must be perfectly marvellous to be the girl who scored - oh, look they're selling ice creams! May we get some, Goldie, please?”

“You know your Aunt doesn't want you buying sweets,” Miss Goldthorpe began, then changed her mind at the disappointment on the girls’ faces, “so I think I had better get them for you!”

“Not really? Oh Goldie, you angel!” Impulsively, Lalla hugged her, and Miss Goldthorpe laughed.

“Don’t expect it every time, but just for once I don’t see the harm. It is a special occasion, after all.”

Once the governess was out of earshot, Lalla turned to Harriet with sparkling eyes. “Isn't it wonderful? I'm going to try out for the team as soon as I can!”

If Lalla had said she was going to run away and join a cloistered order, Harriet couldn’t have been more surprised. Join the team? Was it possible that this was the same Lalla who’d scorned the whole affair, who was never happier than when she had an audience all to herself? Or, no, that wasn't really true, not lately, Harriet reflected. But still, was Lalla really thinking this through?

Lalla clearly expected an answer, and Harriet said the first thing that came to mind. “Aunt Claudia won’t like it.”

Lalla’s gleeful expression turned mulish, and Harriet realised it was the worst thing she could have said.

“I don't care, I'm doing it anyway. Sam told me they're going to have tryouts for new players next month, and I'm going to go for them. I'll just not tell anyone I'm doing it, then they can't stop me!”

“You must tell Max! If you don't he’ll find out from someone else, you know what the rink’s like, and he’ll be frightfully hurt.”

“Oh, I didn't mean Max,” Lalla said quickly - rather too quickly to convince Harriet. “Just not Aunt Claudia.”

“Won't they want you to have your guardian’s permission for it?”

Lalla frowned. “I'll get it somehow, then. She should be happy, after all her fussing over making me a champion grim! Hockey’s ever so much grimmer than figure skating. I'm going to do it, anyhow, even if I have to wait until I'm eighteen and don't need anyone’s permission - but I won't skate at all until then! Look out, Goldie’s coming… Promise you won't say anything to anyone, Harriet!”

Harriet couldn’t enjoy her ice quite as much after that; her head was whirling with Lalla’s astonishing announcement. Could she really mean it, or had she just been carried away by the excitement of the match? If Lalla had really set her heart on hockey, Harriet foresaw a stormy time ahead.

******

Stormy it certainly was at first - Aunt Claudia was firmly against the idea, so Lalla alternately raged and sulked for days. It was hardly the first time they had clashed, but Lalla’s trump card in any argument had always been the threat to stop figure skating - and now, of course, that was exactly what she was planning to do. Finally, the affair was brought to a crisis by Lalla refusing point blank to go to her lesson with Max. In despair, Aunt Claudia went to talk to the skating coach herself - and returned willing to grant conditional permission, to everyone's surprise, including her own.

“Mrs King, may I speak frankly?” Max had said. “You know your niece's” - here he paused for an instant, substituting ‘stubbornness’ for a more diplomatic - “character. At the moment, I believe this is little more than a passing whim; but the more she is refused permission to indulge it, the more determined she will become. Let Lalla learn hockey for a couple of months, and try out for the team; if you make the condition that she must continue her usual work when not practising for it, it should not do much harm. It may even do good, she has been getting a little stale lately. I don't imagine she will wish to stick with it!”

Aunt Claudia could see the sense in what he said, so - though she still thoroughly disliked the idea of hockey -  she returned home and granted Lalla her permission, so long as she didn't neglect her usual training. It was rather unfortunate that she couldn't quite keep back an air of certainty that Lalla would hate hockey, and soon be all too glad to give it up, as it made Lalla more determined than ever to be a great success.

Still, Lalla couldn't help feeling a little nervous as she waited for her first ever hockey coaching, provided to the hopefuls by some of the team's players. What if she wasn't any good at it? She knew that everyone - Max, Aunt Claudia, the Johnson boys, everyone except perhaps Harriet and Uncle David - was expecting her to give it up and go back to figure skating sooner rather than later. It would be too horrible for words if she had to!

Harriet was supposed to be practising her figures on the private rink, but she slipped away for a minute to join Lalla.

“Good luck!” she said. “I'll hold my thumbs for you for a minute if you like… I can't hold them the whole practice, though, I'm supposed to be practising brackets this minute.”

Lalla giggled. “Shall I be you trying to hold your thumbs and do brackets at the same time?” she said, glad for the distraction.

Just then, the hockey team captain appeared and called for everyone to join her. Pushing down her nerves, Lalla skated to the center of the rink - glancing back once at Harriet, who held up her hands with each thumb clasped firmly.

Harriet returned to the private rink and did her best to focus on her own work, but she couldn't help wondering how Lalla was getting on. Finally, she could wait no longer, and went back to the main rink. Where was Lalla? Oh, there! Practising passes with some other new girls, and seemingly doing quite well, as far as Harriet’s untrained eye could tell. At least she wasn’t sending the puck wildly flying as some girls were doing… Or wobbling on her skates, like others.

As Harriet watched, the captain blew her whistle and sent them all off for five minutes’ rest. Spotting Harriet, Lalla joined her, her face one big grin.

“It’s brilliant!” she exclaimed as soon as she was near enough to be heard. “And Alice - that's the captain - said I wasn't half bad for a beginner!”

Harriet couldn't help but grin at the awed tone in which Lalla said that last, when she took the far more elaborate compliments at galas with complete calm. Still, she congratulated her friend, and listened to her effusions about hockey until the five minutes were up and Lalla had to join the group once more - without a backward glance this time.

As she returned to her own work, Harriet felt torn. If Lalla continued to enjoy hockey, would she stop lessons with Max altogether? And perhaps fencing and dancing too? Harriet had no fear now that that would mean the end of her own lessons, as she once might have had. She knew what high expectations Max had of her, and she knew Aunt Claudia liked her role of benefactress to a future champion far too much to give it up - especially if she could no longer be the Aunt of Lalla Moore, queen of the ice, and had to content herself with Lalla Moore, part of the ice hockey team. But it would be far more boring without Lalla… Harriet shook herself and told herself sternly not to be selfish. They’d still have lessons together with Goldie, at least, and their Saturday outings, and special occasions like Christmas and birthdays, and that would just have to be enough. Their paths were bound to become more separate, after all, they were growing up… she just hadn't expected it to be so much so soon.

******

Emerging at last from the changing rooms, the hockey players each went to their own families and friends for a few minutes. Lalla joined the party her family and the Johnsons had made, delighting in their congratulations. After a little while, though, noticing the rest of the team was beginning to gather by the door, she slipped her arm through Harriet’s and led her firmly away. Aunt Claudia began to protest that she hadn't heard nearly enough about the championship yet, but Lalla pacified her with a promise that Harriet should tell her all about it the next day. Partly by necessity, partly by Lalla's excellent progress in the sport, Aunt Claudia had become reconciled to her niece playing hockey, and had even managed to accept Lalla's decision to give up figure skating entirely when she turned eighteen with relatively good grace. However - though she had learnt a great deal about hockey in the past years - figure skating championships continued to interest her far more than ice hockey, and the girls knew she could keep questioning Harriet for hours yet.

Harriet shook her head as they made their escape. “So I'll go and see her tomorrow first thing, will I? I like that!” she said, mock scolding her friend.

“You can go back and tell her about it now instead of coming with us, if you’d rather,” Lalla replied, eyes twinkling.

Harriet snorted with laughter. “Not a chance!”

Lalla grinned. “Good! It wouldn't be a proper celebration without you. And we've got so much to celebrate. Your medal, our match… Oh giggerty-geggerty, I am glad you came back early!”

And Harriet, though laughing at the childish phrase that was still Lalla’s pet expression for moments of great joy, couldn't agree more.


End file.
